Decades of forest loss hit home: Analysts warn future cyclones could batter Indonesia harder

How govt handles land-use reform, they say, could determine whether such disasters remain rare or become regular threat

- Arlina Arshad

Whole villages vanished almost overnight when Cyclone Senyar veered towards the Malacca Strait in late November, unleashing torrents that tore through riverbanks and sheared off hillsides across Indonesia's Sumatra island.

Families were trapped in mudslides, homes swept away and rivers overflowed into communities.

Since then, more than 700 people have died, 500 remain missing, and a million have been displaced, according to official data.

The cyclone may have been the trigger, but environmental analysts say the destruction reflects decades of forest loss, weak land management and governance failures that have left Sumatra vulnerable to extreme weather.

"This disaster had two major drivers," Mr Henri Subagiyo, a senior researcher at the Indonesian Center for Environmental Law, told The Straits Times. "Firstly, there is the weather anomaly, namely the presence of Tropical Cyclone Senyar, which is rare in Indonesia."

He noted that Indonesia has experienced a surge in tropical cyclones recently, including Cyclone Seroja in East Nusa Tenggara and Cyclone Paddy in Central Java in 2021, highlighting a rising disaster risk as climate change fuels more extreme weather across the country.

Secondly, Sumatra's vulnerability has deepened, Mr Henri said, as its forests have steadily disappeared. Satellite assessments show that the island lost more than 9 million ha of forest between 1990 and 2024.

The decline has been "major, whether caused by legal or illegal activities", he said. "Sumatra has lost forest cover equivalent to three or four times Singapore's land area every year."

The cyclones, and vulnerability due to loss of forest cover and deforestation, "form a vicious cycle of flooding in Sumatra", he added.